Joint bank account

On March 10, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) unveiled a Request for Applications (RFA) for the Next Generation Accountable Care Organization (Next Generation ACO or Next Generation Model), to “test whether strong financial incentives for ACOs can improve health outcomes and reduce expenditures for Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries.”Similar to other Medicare ACO Models, the Next Generation Model will be evaluated on its ability to deliver better care for individual patients, improve population health, and lower expenditure growth. However, the Next Generation Model is different from existing ACO Models in many respects. Next Generation ACOs will take on greater performance risk than current models, and have the potential to share in a greater portion of savings. To support the increased risk sharing, Next Generation ACOs will have refined benchmarking methods that reward attainment of cost savings and a selection of payment mechanisms to … [Read more...] about CMS Offers a New Accountable Care Organization Model

The European Union has introduced a new procedure to facilitate cross-border debt recovery, which aims to preserve funds and recover bad debt.BackgroundRegulation No. 655/2014 (the Regulation) was introduced to preserve funds and allow recovery of bad debt across EU borders. The European Commission estimated that the Regulation will lead to the recovery of €373 million–€600 million per year. However, this is not the only impact of the Regulation—it also provides shared rules regarding the procedure for issuing an order, a disclosure order relating to banking information, enforcement standards, and available remedies.To achieve its aims, the Regulation has created European Account Preservation Orders (EAPOs) (commonly referred to as “Preservation Orders” in the Regulation text), which are available as an alternative to any instrument available under the relevant national law. EAPOs are separate and standalone Europe-wide orders, which enable creditors … [Read more...] about European Account Preservation Orders: A New Method for Debt Recovery

A health savings account (HSA) is a type of tax-exempt trust created for the exclusive purpose of paying for qualified medical expenses of an account beneficiary.[1] An eligible employee may allocate a limited amount of funds to the HSA, pre-tax, for current and future medical expenses. The pre-tax contribution may even qualify as a pre-employment tax contribution, not simply pre-ordinary income tax like the commonly used Individual Retirement Account (IRA) or 401(k) savings plan. Funds contributed to the HSA grow tax deferred and potentially tax free. Funds withdrawn from the trust to cover qualified medical expenses are exempt from ordinary income tax. Funds withdrawn for non-qualified reasons are generally subject to a penalty tax as well as ordinary income tax. However, funds withdrawn for non-medical expenses after the age of Medicare eligibility are exempt from penalties and simply subject to ordinary income tax, making the HSA similar to a retirement … [Read more...] about Health Savings Account: A Hidden Gem in Employee Benefits

After collecting millions of dollars in unpaid taxes from Americans with secret bank accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, the Internal Revenue Service is expanding its overseas enforcement efforts.The tax agency is working with its counterparts in other countries to develop a plan for conducting joint audits of multinational corporations, reports Bloomberg.“We are in the very early stages of looking at these protocols,” said IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman at a Washington, D.C., conference co-sponsored by his agency and George Washington University. … [Read more...] about IRS and Foreign Countries May Jointly Audit Some Corporations

UK regulators extend the new regulatory framework that governs individual accountability to banking and insurance.The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) published their final rules on the new banking accountability regime in early July 2015 following a consultation exercise that began in July 2014. The new banking regime is being introduced in response to the perceived shortcomings arising out of the recent banking crisis and as a way of better managing risk in banks.The new regime comprises three elements: the senior manager's regime (SMR), the certification regime (CR), and the conduct rules. The SMR focuses on individuals who hold key roles or have overall responsibility for a whole area of a bank, and the FCA and PRA will approve them individually. The CR applies to anyone who could pose a risk of significant harm to a firm or any of its customers, such as staff who give investment advice. Those personnel will no longer be required to … [Read more...] about UK Financial Institutions Strengthen Accountability

In Part 1 of the series on joint accounts we examined tax issues that can result from joint accounts. In this article we discuss conflicts between the beneficiaries on a joint account and the estate plan under a will or trust. Although this article primarily references joint accounts, these problems apply equally to Payable on Death and Transfer on Death (TOD) designations. Conflicts between a Will and a joint account (or POD or TOD designation) create issues that are less technical than the tax issues we covered in Part I, but can actually be far more costly. In many situations, the emotions associated with an imbalanced estate result in bitter litigation that generates expensive attorney’s fees and depletes the estate.Because joint account titles are often made without the benefit of estate planning counsel, with little analysis of the consequences, they can have profound effects on an estate. Joint account designations supersede a will or a trust. If I designate my daughter as … [Read more...] about A Joint Account Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time – Part II

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals recently decided an issue of first impression in Maryland -- that is, whether funds in an existing joint bank account can be garnished where one of the account holders is a non-debtor. O’Brien v. Bank of America, -- A.3d ----, 2013 WL 4788294 (Sept. 9, 2013). The O’Brien Court, relying on the legislative history of the applicable statute, § 11-603(c) of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article of the Maryland Code (hereafter “11-603”) and looking to related statutes and case law in other jurisdictions, found that such accounts can be garnished, even where one of the account holders is a non-debtor. Thus, Bank of America could garnish the account held by the O’Briens, a married couple, even though Mrs. O’Brien was the sole debtor. Such joint bank accounts are thus distinguishable from trust accounts, which, in Maryland National Bank v. Pearce, 329 Md. … [Read more...] about Banks: How to Garnish a Married Couple

The US District Court for the Northern District of New York granted the Securities and Exchange Commission’s motion for entry of final judgment and monetary relief of disgorgement and prejudgment interest against defendants in a case involving violations of securities laws through the operation of a Ponzi scheme. In September 2011, the court granted the SEC’s motion for default judgment as to liability and injunctive relief, and granted leave for the SEC to seek disgorgement, prejudgment interest and civil penalties following resolution of the criminal case then pending against the individual defendant who operated the Ponzi scheme. In seeking an award of $4,557,632 in disgorgement from all defendants, the SEC submitted exhibits detailing defendants’ bank account activity involving investor funds. The court awarded the amount sought, finding that it was a “reasonable approximation of profits causally connected” to the Ponzi scheme. The court also awarded … [Read more...] about Court Finds Defendants Jointly and Severally Liable for Disgorgement and Prejudgment Interest Award in Ponzi Scheme Case

On January 16, 2016, two NFL playoff games and a historic revision of U.S. foreign policy took place. Many of us enjoyed the first two (did you see that last-second touchdown pass?!) but did not pay close attention as the United States lifted many of its secondary sanctions against Iran. Even those normally attentive to sanctions news had already heard that things were not going to change that much for U.S. persons.Well, (and those in New England, Wisconsin, the Carolinas, and Denver are excused from the following imperative through next week) SIT UP AND PAY ATTENTION:U.S. persons will be allowed to participate in trade with Iran in certain, limited ways, including selling commercial aircraft, purchasing certain items imported from Iran, and owning, directing, and providing certain support services to U.S.-owned subsidiaries dealing with Iran. (Oh, hey, championship-bound football fans, we thought you’d come back to learn more. This news has all the intensity of an overtime … [Read more...] about Airplanes, Pistachios, and New Burger Joint in Tehran: What Changes for United States Under Lighter Iran Sanctions

In September last year, an allegation of fraudulent siphoning of 19 Lakhs was made out via an ICICI current bank account of Sanjay Dhande, a former Director of IIT Kanpur. The account was jointly owned by Dhande and his wife and they were using mobile phone banking, using the services of Vodafone. The sim was registered in his wife’s name. Peculiarly the sim had stopped working around the 6th to 9th of September, 2013 during which time the fraudulent siphoning of funds via a foreign IP address in Turkey took place. The complaint was made to the mobile service provider on 10th of September, regarding the non -functioning of the sim. Later the victim received the full horror of the information and immediately asked the bank to freeze his accounts. When Mr. Dhande sent a complaint letter to the Vodafone office regarding illegal sim hacking, he was told that on 6th of September, a duplicate sim was issued by the Pune Office of the service provider to a third person without … [Read more...] about Expanding horizons of data protection in cyberspace: Court orders negligent bank and mobile service provider to pay compensation